The Monster who won’t give up

For the people of the Second to Sixth Cultivation Villages, this winter day was an unforgettable day indeed.

“I have something important to tell everyone,” said the savior of the villages. He was accompanied by the people of the Seventh Cultivation Village and those of the First Cultivation Village which was supposed to have been deserted, as well as several knights in armor who were tied up and being pulled along.

“Everyone, listen to me,” Sebas pleaded. “We’ve all been deceived by the Hartner family! When we became unable to maintain the First Cultivation Village, us villagers were told we were being sent to a new land to cultivate. We followed them, only to be thrown into the slave-run mine! We had no crimes or debts, yet we were turned into slaves! Because of the harsh labor we were forced to do in the mine, my father, the village chief…!”

“My little sister and brother as well…! There’s no difference between the Hartner family and those bastards from the Amid Empire!”

“My Nee-san was treated as a plaything by the men… they’re nothing but demons!”

Those from the First Cultivation Village, including Sebas, the village chief’s son, spoke of the sorrow they had endured at the slave-run mine. Even though they were from another village, they were friends who had been living in this cultivated land, just like the rest of the villages. Each village had many who recognized their faces. The other villagers got the feeling that the color of their eyes was a little different, but that was within acceptable limits of error.

Thus, no matter how difficult it was to believe their words, it was impossible to completely reject them.

“And Lord Lucas… No, Lucas, who is about to become in charge of the Hartner Duchy, tried to destroy this cultivation project! Come on, talk!” Sebas said to Pablo, who had been captured alive.

Pablo gave a groan before revealing everything, except for the details regarding Froto, the fake priest sent by Karcan.

My body, even my mouth, moves against my will. W-why in the world?!

Vandalieu had used Spirit Form Transformation, split his claw into string-thin parts that extended to the knights who had been captured alive and then used Materialization inside their bodies.

He was secreting various drugs from his claws in real-time, forcing them into a state where they couldn’t remain silent.

But thanks to the numerous resistance skills that existed in Lambda, it was possible to resist the effects of drugs in ways that were scientifically impossible.

“It’s best to give up. You people don’t want to end up like Kinarp, do you?” Vandalieu whispered to them, ensuring that they didn’t regain their willpower and strength. He was also using his Mental Encroachment skill to inflict mental damage on them while slowly injecting more venom into them, little by little, and this was slowly beginning to take effect.

“I-I am… Pablo Marton, the captain of the Red Wolf Knights’ Order. In order to have Lucas-sama succeed the duke family, I created secret plans and ordered my subordinates to sabotage the cultivation villages…”

Hearing Pablo’s confession and seeing the crest on the armor that he was wearing, the trust the villagers of the cultivation villages had in the Hartner Duchy plummeted to the ground.

The concept of human rights was underdeveloped in Lambda, and those of royal or noble status were considered to be like a superior race to commoners.

With that said, commoners still felt anger and dissatisfaction when trampled underfoot for absurd reasons.

However, even if they did feel anger and dissatisfaction, there was a difference in power that prevented them from doing anything about it. It was meaningless for poor people living in cultivation villages to even think about opposing the Hartner family, who essentially ruled an entire nation.

But there was no guarantee that they could keep living quietly like this. The next duke had dispatched a Knights’ Order and demanded impossible amounts to be paid in taxes and then told the villagers to tie ropes on themselves and become slaves because they had been unable to pay.

It was difficult to imagine that the Hartner family would stay silent after the Knights’ Order had been repelled, and the villagers couldn’t just hope for the Hartner family to change its way of thinking. If they were going to be turned into slaves, didn’t they have no choice but to run away and become bandits or something?

Vandalieu whispered to the sorrowful villagers.

“I’m sure you can no longer live in the Hartner Duchy. If you don’t mind, won’t you all come to me like Sebas and the others have?”

“Us survivors from the First Cultivation Village are all living under his rule,” Sebas continued. “We’re living rich lives in a place where even the Hartner family can’t touch us. We’re eating until our stomachs are full every day, and there’s even work for us to do!”

The villagers stirred and their eyes shone with hope.

“Chief, me and my family are going to follow this child!” said Kyne, the hunter from the Fifth Cultivation Village.

Other villagers who had been directly saved by Vandalieu, just like Kyne, raised their voices. The village leaders thought about the offer and then came to a decision.

“Alright. Everyone, we must make preparations. This place could not become our second home. I am sure it will be difficult to start over again, but we have the Guardian of the Cultivation Villages with us! We can make a new beginning anywhere! Isn’t that right?!”

Vandalieu repeated this process for all of the cultivation villages.

And so, it was decided that over a thousand villagers would migrate to Talosheim.

The villagers, who were now receiving the benefits of Vandalieu’s Strengthen Followers skill, were working away to prepare for their migration.

The Red Wolf Knights’ Order had been carrying messenger pigeons to contact Lord Lucas, but they had been seized as well.

“Now then, please write that ‘everything is in order,’” Vandalieu requested. “Ah, I don’t recommend that you include a secret code to tell them that there is an emergency situation,” he added. “They probably won’t make it in time anyway… But if by some chance they do, and I have no choice but to do what I have to in order to protect everyone, that would be bad for you, wouldn’t it?”

Pablo showed no signs of resistance. Even he knew that the Hartner Duchy would suffer the least damage if Vandalieu and the others simply left.

Things might be different if the Five-colored Blades came, but they were adventurers, nothing more. They were unlikely to move to match Lord Lucas’s needs.

And the mastermind of all of this was a Dhampir. The ones who had been acting unreasonably were Pablo and his men. Even if the Adventurers’ Guild learned of the situation, they were unlikely to side with the knights, who were the ones who had carried out injustice.

The Adventurers’ Guild probably wouldn’t cause any direct trouble in the Hartner Duchy, though… unlike the monstrosity before Pablo’s eyes.

“What are you thinking? Why are you doing such a thing?” Pablo asked Vandalieu, the fearsome monstrosity in the form of a child.

What Vandalieu had done in this incident was different to repelling Karcan’s men, who had disguised themselves as bandits.

Unlike Karcan and his men, Pablo and his knights had been clearly recognizable as the Red Wolf Knights’ Order, and announced that they had come under formal orders from Lord Lucas, who represented Duke Hartner. Despite that, Vandalieu had incited the villagers, used military power to resist and slaughtered all of the knights except for a few.

If this incident were to be discovered, the people might praise Vandalieu, but a bounty would be put on his head for treason and he would be hunted all over the nation. If he was caught, he wouldn’t simply become a criminal slave; he would be unable to avoid execution.

That was how serious Vandalieu’s crime was.

Why would he risk all of that to save the people of the cultivation villages? The rewards simply didn’t make the risks. Considering the dirty methods that Vandalieu had used, Pablo couldn’t imagine that he had been driven by a sense of justice.

So just why had he done this?

Pablo’s questions weren’t an attempt to negotiate or gather information. The monstrosity before his eyes was simply so incomprehensible that he couldn’t help but ask.

“For the sake of my own happiness.”

The response Pablo received was also beyond his understanding.

“For the sake of your happiness? How does saving them lead to your happiness?” he asked.

Pablo couldn’t imagine that Vandalieu stood to gain much here. Just what would he be able to do after gathering a group of poor cultivation villagers who had nobody supporting them? Even if he turned all of them into Vampires, it was unlikely that this was worth the risk of opposing the Orbaume Kingdom.

“Why do you doubt that saving everyone will lead to my happiness?” Vandalieu asked. It seemed that he couldn’t understand Pablo’s doubt, either. “I was simply passing by and there were people who were in trouble, so I helped them ‘a little.’ Those people were happy, and I became happy as well. And then while I was helping them ‘a little,’ we became close to each other and I made friends. And then people came to try and kill those friends and use dirty methods to take everything from them, so I helped them ‘a little’ once more. Is it really that strange?”

This was the only reason Vandalieu had for being an ally of the cultivation villages. As a result, he had acquired the Title, ‘Guardian of the Cultivation Villages,’ but that was merely a result that followed everything else.

It is said that even chance meetings are due to fate, and good you do to others is good you do to yourself. Vandalieu did have a little self-interest in mind, but if he were the kind of person who would consider wanting the villagers to be happy to be a detestable ulterior motive, he never would have gotten involved with other people to begin with.

It just so happened that Vandalieu’s idea of ‘a little’ was relatively large. He had the fighting ability to lightheartedly dispose of Goblin Barbarians, Orcs and bandits. He had the magic and Mana to lightheartedly treat the injured and sick, remove the poison contaminating the fields and dig a well.

Vandalieu hated the idea of “the responsibility of those with power,” but he wouldn’t detest helping people ‘a little’ out of kindness.

In other words, this was normal.

“H-how can you give such a stupid excuse! For such a trivial reason, you turned us, the Hartner Duchy, into your enemies?! It is even possible for the entire kingdom to turn on you!” Pablo shouted, seemingly unable to accept this answer.

“Well, for such a trivial reason, you have all been exterminated,” said Vandalieu.

Pablo’s eyes widened as he fell into silence.

Won’t this person’s eyeballs fly out of their sockets if he keeps this up? Vandalieu thought as he continued speaking.

“The misunderstanding I don’t want you to make is the assumption that I didn’t intend to make the Hartner family my enemy from the beginning,” he said. “You people did a lot of things to others, so I simply did some things back.”

“A-a lot of things, you say?” Pablo wondered if Vandalieu was referring to the Karcan’s reckless behavior, but he was wrong.

“Your ancestors murdered Titans from Talosheim including Princess Levia, and sent the rest of the refugees to become slaves in a mine. Even after two hundred years passed, you did not stop treating them as slaves. That’s why I released the spirits of Princess Levia and the others, and rescued the refugees from the mine. You people had connections to the Pure-breed Vampires, so I revealed that. You people tried to destroy the cultivation villages, so I stopped you from doing that. You people caused everything. I simply acted in response.”

“What?! Then, all of the incidents that have been happening…!”

“Yes, I am the main culprit.”

This wasn’t something that was easy to believe, but the monstrosity before Pablo’s eyes had already accomplished a great number of unbelievable things.

Pablo had been unaware of the conspiracy that had occurred two hundred years ago, but he could imagine that the Duke Hartner back then had started something.

In fact, Pablo and his men had been trying to do something similar in the cultivation villages, so it would have been stranger to think that the duke’s family of the past hadn’t started anything.

“D-demon…” Pablo muttered.

“Demon?” Vandalieu repeated. He was bewildered; he didn’t understand why he was being called a demon.

“Yes, you’re a demon,” said Pablo. “It would be stranger if you were not a demon. What you have done to the people you said you are protecting is not what can be considered sane. You turned the slaves you rescued into Vampires, produced insects and plants from your body one after another, fanned the fires of anger and dissatisfaction the people felt for the Hartner Duchy, spoke pleasant words to them and incited them against us. And why have the people of the cultivation villages, who have seen the countless monsters and those who have transformed into Vampires serving you, accepted that so easily?!” he demanded.

“Perhaps because everyone is open-minded?” Vandalieu suggested.

“There is no way that is possible! You are manipulating them, aren’t you?!” Pablo shouted.

“No, I really have no idea,” said Vandalieu. “Though I do think that everyone is very open-minded.”

None of the people of the cultivation villages felt any apprehension about the fact that Sebas and the others had been turned into Subordinate Vampires by Eleanora, or the fact that Vandalieu used insectoid and plant-type monsters. Especially those of the Seventh Cultivation Village.

Vandalieu had thought it strange, as Death-Attribute Charm wasn’t affecting them, but hadn’t read too much into it, assuming that it was because they were believers of Vida – the same assumption he had made with Gopher and the other Titan refugees.

The truth was that it was the effect of the Strengthen Followers skill.

The moment the people of the cultivation villages chose to follow Vandalieu, they had become his followers. They felt a sense of familiarity and unity with Sebas and the other Vampires, as well as Pete and the rest of the monsters, because they were all Vandalieu’s followers as well.

The Strengthen Followers skill wasn’t a skill that was supposed to work on members of other races, so nobody, not even Vandalieu himself, knew this.

However, even if Vandalieu was aware of this, he probably wouldn’t think of it as a bad thing.

“Well, I do admit that I stirred them up and instigated them, but is that a bad thing?” Vandalieu asked. “After all, right after you people tried to slaughter everyone in the cultivation villages, you tried to force unreasonable demands on them and turn them in the slaves, intending to kill them if they disobeyed, didn’t you?”

“Th-that is, Karcan… You people…”

“You people are responsible for Karcan, so this was simply our response.”

As Pablo looked at Vandalieu, his vision blurred. His sweat, his cold sweat, had dripped into his eyes.

He had decided that the Dhampir in front of him was a monstrosity after all.

Vandalieu was speaking logically and politely; in fact, Pablo even felt like Vandalieu had a point.

But looking at Vandalieu’s eyes, Pablo knew it. He knew that a monstrosity was before him. This monstrosity showed no hesitation to defy the absolute authority of the Hartner Duchy. He wasn’t a champion of justice or a hero for the refugees.

He was a demon who tempted people.

Demons in fairy tales tempted people extremely kindly, and then they would guide the people on a path of evil!

“By the way, are you almost finished?” Vandalieu asked.

Pablo was startled by the question. He wondered just what kind of conversation he had been having with this demon.

He hadn’t been negotiating or gathering information. So, was it just idle talk? Impossible; it wasn’t as calm as that. Every time he had opened his mouth, he had been staring at the monstrosity before his eyes with more and more interest, hadn’t he?!

The monstrosity stood up from the log he had been sitting on, and his claws drew close to Pablo.

“For some reason, I am told that I’m insane, so I wanted to try talking to a normal person who is in a completely opposite position to mine,” said Vandalieu. “There were many points that I could understand. I felt like I did most of the talking in the end, but the time I spent on this conversation was very valuable.”

“W-what are you planning to do? W-what will become of me?” asked Pablo.

“Please provide my apprentice with more valuable time… as a guinea pig,” said Vandalieu. “Don’t worry. It will be over much quicker than the time I spent as a guinea pig.”

The moment Pablo thought he felt a liquid dripping onto his face, his consciousness blacked out.

『The level of the Grotesque Mind skill has increased!』

Immediately after a messenger pigeon delivered a message that read, “Nothing abnormal, everything is in order,” contact with the Red Wolf Knights’ Order ceased.

Spies were sent to investigate. What they found were empty cultivation villages and traces of a large number of people moving south.

Lord Lucas sent more spies to learn more details, but they didn’t gain any solid information at all. He tried hiring a capable Spiritualist who was said to be living in Niarki, but it seemed that she had already closed her shop and either moved to another duchy or back to the Elf village where she was born.

In the city that was abandoned… or rather, forced to be abandoned, two hundred years ago, in a place a short distance away from the cultivation villages, a small-scale Dungeon with a single floor had appeared. Also, the tunnel that led to the southern region of the continent where Talosheim was should have been impossible to pass through as it had collapsed. But there were traces that the boulder at its entrance had moved. These were the only things that the spies were able to learn.

“Could it be that all of these events were caused by someone who crawled into the duchy from Talosheim?!”

In spring, Lucas shuddered when he saw this report. He had formally succeeded the Hartner family. Of course, now that he had become the duke, he knew of the absurd betrayal his predecessor had committed two hundred years ago.

Royalty and nobles created all kinds of enemies and allies through all sorts of methods. But when a new individual took over the family’s headship, it was common for them to set the previous generation’s deeds aside and mend previous relationships. There were some cases where a predecessor had said that certain families should never be forgiven, but even then, reconciliation usually happened a few generations later.

But grudges of other races, especially those with long lifespans, were different. Even if the humans had changed generations, the other race’s individuals were often still alive.

Titans had lifespans of three hundred years. And although this news arrived late, the spies that the Hartner family had sent into the Amid Empire delivered information to Lucas that an expedition army of six thousand men sent by the Mirg shield-nation into the continent’s southern region had returned as a swarm of thousands of Undead.

There was something in Talosheim. And that something was deeply malicious towards the Hartner family. There was no doubting that.

Lucas had no way of knowing how that something was related to the cultivation villages, however. He didn’t know that it was simply because the cultivation villages were close to Talosheim.

“The appearance of small-scale Dungeons, the religion of Vida spreading among the farming villages, all of it is the doing of that someone…” Lord Lucas murmured. “Curse you, ancestors. Thanks to you, the Hartner family has earned the hatred of a monstrosity!”

Lord Lucas announced that the Red Wolf Knights’ Order had moved to exterminate disaster-designated monster races that had settled into the ruins of the slave-run mine, where all of the men under Pablo’s command lost their lives in exchange for those of the monsters. He also announced that the cultivation villages had been unable to be saved.

And then he decided to build a fort in the city of Niarki to be prepared to fight the monster to the south of the continent.

Incidentally, around this time, the Five-colored Blades were investigating the small-scale Dungeons when they ran into and defeated some Vampires who had come to do some investigating as well. With the information they gained from these Vampires, they followed the trail of the Pure-breed Vampire Ternecia and left the Hartner Duchy.

With this food in front of them, everyone’s eyes sparkled as if they had laid eyes on some high-class dishes, then they cheered.

“Wonderful…! I’ve never seen any of these dishes before!”

“I can’t hold back anymore! Itadakimasu!”

And then they began eating with an intense vigor. Talosheim’s usual members, with the addition of Luciliano, Kasim, Fester, Zeno and Lina, were here to enjoy the food.

The dishes had been cooked by the craftsmen who had migrated from the cultivation village. Everyone was taking the food from the plates one after another and eating as if in a frenzy, even though they weren’t being pressed to eat quickly.

“This gyoza, there are meat and vegetables inside?! What juicy bread! I see, it’s so delicious because the ingredients are wrapped in this thin bread!”

“Even gyoza is considered bread in Lambda, I see,” Vandalieu noted.

“Hey, bearded old man, this stir-fried bread called soba with vegetables and seafood is delicious!” said Kasim. “Those people from the country called ‘Earth’ were pretty clever to think of stir-frying bread together with other ingredients!”

“Kasim-kun, I am still in my twenties!” Luciliano said indignantly. “And that is not bread; they are called noodles!”

It seemed that the food was well-received by Talosheim’s new citizens. Braga, Eleanora, Zadiris and the others who were already accustomed to eating this food were also enjoying it.

“The taste is different this time, but it is still delicious,” said Eleanora.

“Yes, it seems that the takoyaki is filled with jam, and the yakisoba’s sauce is tare made with fruit and spices rather than soy sauce and mayonnaise,” Zadiris observed.

There were many dishes that weren’t difficult to reproduce as long as the method of making them were known and the ingredients were gathered. As for the necessary cookware, Vandalieu could make as many as was needed, as he was able to freely change the shape of wood and metal with Golem Transmutation.

He did have to work hard to make the equipment required to make Cuban sandwiches, which were made by putting ingredients between two buns and cooking it from both above and below, and kebabs, which were made by wrapping slices of meat into a cylindrical shape.

“So, what do you think?” Vandalieu asked. “If I continued selling these for three months at a food stall, do you think the Commerce Guild would accept it?”

He hadn’t given up on becoming an adventurer.

But he thought that he would have to use a bit of a roundabout method to do so. That roundabout method was to register at the Commerce Guild.

When he registered at the Adventurers’ Guild, his Status would be inspected, but Kasim and his friends knew of a way to avoid this – by presenting the registration card of another Guild.

The Commerce Guild, Mages’ Guild, Workers’ Guild – any Guild would do. If he already had a registration card of another guild, that meant his social status had already been checked.

And then Vandalieu would be able to have his Guild Card made without having his Status looked at by the Guild employee.

Incidentally, Darcia, Kachia and Borkus hadn’t known of this registration method. The Adventurers’ Guild was the Guild that was easiest to register at, so there was never a need to use such a roundabout method.

Kasim and his friends had only learned of it through the only son of a traveling merchant, whom they had met at the adventurer training school. They had remembered that this person had said, “I showed them my Commerce Guild registration card, so they didn’t have to take my blood.”

Incidentally, that only son of a traveling merchant had registered at the Adventurers’ Guild not because he had been trying to seriously become an adventurer, but because the adventurer training school was the cheapest way to learn to defend himself.

Vandalieu had chosen the Commerce Guild as the Guild he would register at before registering at the Adventurers’ Guild.

This food-sampling feast was to get everyone’s opinions on whether the food could be used to sell in order to fulfil the Commerce Guild’s registration requirement of “conducting business.”

“I’m sure it will sell. There’s no way something this delicious wouldn’t sell!” said Borkus.

“Oyaji, the bits of food are falling out of the other side of your mouth,” Gopher told him.

“We agree!” said Sam.

“I’m sure they will sell, Bocchan!” said Rita.

“I know you’re not using miso or soy sauce so that they don’t stand out, but I think there won’t be a problem,” said Vigaro. “There might be some who prefer it like this.”

The reason he hadn’t used things like miso, soy sauce and mayonnaise was because it would be problematic if the Church of Alda learned that these flavorings were being used.

It probably wouldn’t become such a severe issue in the Orbaume Kingdom, but people with extreme opinions existed everywhere.

It would be problematic for Vandalieu to get involved with such people before he even entered society.

“S… weet…” Rapiéçage groaned.

“It’s delicious. I’m sure everyone will buy them!”

Still, it was a relief that the food was quite popular, though.

“It is indeed delicious to the point of being emotionally moving,” said Luciliano, who had experienced receiving special requests for him by name from multiple noblemen and wealthy merchants. However, he was wearing a difficult expression. “But there is a problem with selling it at stalls, Master,” he said.

“Yes, the problem is the price,” said Luciliano. “For example, this gyoza, these ingredients that are seasoned with these spices are expensive. The same goes for the steamed meat dumplings and the meat buns. The yakisoba is also full of luxurious ingredients, the kebabs and hot dogs… there is even butter in the Cuban sandwiches. Takoyaki uses a lot of oil, okonomiyaki requires fresh seafood, taiyaki needs jam and honey… There is an abundance of expensive flavors.”

“No, it doesn’t really matter if he sells it cheap, does it? Vandalieu’s objective is to register at the Guild, not to make a profit,” Kasim pointed out. “It’s not like he’s struggling to make a living.”

It was true that Vandalieu wasn’t trying to make a living out of his food stand’s sales, nor did he actually need to make a profit. In fact, what he wanted was to be conducting a business, so he wouldn’t care at all if he made a loss.

But Luciliano thought differently. “That is a naïve way of thinking,” he said. “If one sold dishes like this at a price that is clearly below the market, at a price that the masses can afford… What would the owners of other stores think?”

“… No matter how I think about it, I get the feeling that it’ll cause trouble,” said Kasim.

“Exactly,” said Luciliano.

“… Relationships with people are troublesome, aren’t they? Then how about doing business in towns and villages that don’t have any food stalls?” Vandalieu suggested.

“Master, I do not believe there would be a Commerce Guild in such places,” said Luciliano.

“Umm, there isn’t a need to be a big success, so can’t you just make and sell the same thing as the other food stands?” Lina suggested.

“Hmm, but it will hurt my conscience to make bad food and take money for it,” said Vandalieu.

Lina’s suggestion was quite a safe option, but Vandalieu felt opposed to it. Lambda’s stall food typically didn’t taste very good. Of course, it was true that Vandalieu was picky with his food.

The amount and affordability normally took priority over the taste, and it was important to be able to make it quickly with a limited amount of working space, so it wasn’t very delicious.

“Wouldn’t it be better to set up a permanent store rather than a food stand?” Luciliano suggested. “The food that you make, Master, is all things that even members of royal and noble families would eat.”

“… The image I had of royalty and nobles has crumbled again,” said Vandalieu. He felt dizzy just imagining dressed up, wealthy men and women having a banquet, giving elegant laughs of “fufufu” and “ohoho” as they conversed over yakisoba and takoyaki.

“Once I decide on a place to set up business, I suppose I’ll examine the prices of things being sold there before coming to a decision. Either way, I won’t be able to do business until I get rid of some of the Pure-breed Vampires, so it will be some time in the future,” said Vandalieu.

“By the way, Van, why is your physical body lying down and not moving?” asked Basdia, who had noticed that the physical Vandalieu was lying face-down in the corner of the room, completely still.

“… That is the one in charge of handling the depressing thoughts,” replied the spirit-form Vandalieu.

Who’s the one who called me ‘Monstrosity?’ If I find them, I’ll stick my claws in their ears and make their teeth rattle*.

TLN*: This is a variation on a threat that’s commonly used in the Osaka prefecture that’s something like, “I’ll stick my hand in through your ears and grab your teeth.”